Building bridges between environmental and political agendas is essential nowadays in face of the increasing human pressure on natural environments, including wetlands. Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services for humanity and can generate a considerable direct or indirect income to the local communities. To meet many of the sustainable development goals, we need to move our trajectory from the current environmental destructive development to a wiser wetland use. The current article contain a proposed agenda for the Pantanal aiming the improvement of public policy for conservation in the Pantanal, one of the largest, most diverse, and continuous inland wetland in the world. We suggest and discuss a list of 11 essential interfaces between science, policy, and development in region linked to the proposed agenda. We believe that a functional science network can booster the collaborative capability to generate creative ideas and solutions to address the big challenges faced by the Pantanal wetland.

The increasing frequency and severity of human‐caused fires likely have deleterious effects on species distribution and persistence. In 2020, megafires in the Brazilian Pantanal burned 43% of the biome's unburned area and resulted in mass mortality of wildlife. We investigated changes in habitat use or occupancy for an assemblage of eight mammal species in Serra do Amolar, Brazil, following the 2020 fires using a pre‐ and post‐fire camera trap dataset. Additionally, we estimated the density for two naturally marked species, jaguars Panthera onca and ocelots Leopardus pardalis. Of the eight species, six (ocelots, collared peccaries Dicotyles tajacu, giant armadillos Priodontes maximus, Azara's agouti Dasyprocta azarae, red brocket deer Mazama americana, and tapirs Tapirus terrestris) had declining occupancy following fires, and one had stable habitat use (pumas Puma concolor). Giant armadillo experienced the most precipitous decline in occupancy from 0.431 ± 0.171 to 0.077 ± 0.044 after the fires. Jaguars were the only species with increasing habitat use, from 0.393 ± 0.127 to 0.753 ± 0.085. Jaguar density remained stable across years (2.8 ± 1.3, 3.7 ± 1.3, 2.6 ± 0.85/100 km²), while ocelot density increased from 13.9 ± 3.2 to 16.1 ± 5.2/100 km². However, the low number of both jaguars and ocelots recaptured after the fire period suggests that immigration may have sustained the population. Our results indicate that the megafires will have significant consequences for species occupancy and fitness in fire‐affected areas. The scale of megafires may inhibit successful recolonization, thus wider studies are needed to investigate population trends.

The current range of the jaguar (Panthera onca) spans sixty degrees of latitude across eighteen countries in the Western Hemisphere and covers approximately 7,000,000 km². Throughout this geographical breadth, jaguars represent an essential component of native biological diversity, but conflict revolving around real and perceived jaguar depredation on livestock is a factor in jaguar mortality. We developed a structured questionnaire to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-depredation strategies from northern Mexico to Argentina, collecting data from 11 countries and 248 livestock operations, 194 with efficacy metrics, and 24 with benefit–cost ratios (value of the livestock losses averted/cost of the intervention). Using coarse categories, 11 intervention types were tested. Techniques effectively reducing livestock losses were documented across the entire livestock operation size (2–130,000 ha, 5–30,000 head) and biome spectrum. While the techniques varied in complexity and required levels of investment, successful reductions in depredation were achieved at all levels. We conclude that anti-depredation strategies are highly effective, and when benefits are evaluated, they surpass costs, sometimes substantially. Given the proven efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the techniques described in this paper, we advocate for broader application across the species range to increase tolerance towards jaguars and a more effective human–jaguar coexistence.

Anthropogenic habitat transformation has led to population declines and increasing isolation of populations of many species, particularly top predators, where small and fragmented populations often experience limited dispersal and reduced genetic diversity. Jaguars ( Panthera onca ), for example, have lost half of their historical range and most populations outside the Amazon biome are small, isolated and highly threatened. Here, we assess jaguar population connectivity across the species' range by identifying and ranking core areas and dispersal corridors, including linkages among Protected Areas and Indigenous Lands (hereafter, PAs). We used cumulative resistant kernels and factorial Least‐Cost Paths (fLCP) in two complementary approaches: core area‐based and PA‐based connectivity. We identified 307 core areas for jaguar movement, covering ~7.75 million km ² (55% of the current range), of which approximately half lies within PAs. The largest and highest‐ranked core area spans ~6.5 million km ² across four biomes (Amazon, Llanos, Chaco and Pantanal). We identified 176 dispersal corridors connecting core areas, although connectivity was not continuous across the entire range. Northern populations (Mexico and Central America) showed several connectivity gaps, whereas South America displayed a large, highly interconnected network linking the Amazon, Llanos, Chaco, Pantanal, Cerrado, Caatinga, Iberá and the Atlantic Forest's Green Corridor. In contrast, coastal Atlantic Forest patches appeared largely isolated. The PA‐based analysis predicted 507 potential corridors connecting 905 PAs, including potential links absent from the core area model, particularly across Central America and between the Darién Gap, Amazon and coastal Atlantic Forest. The core‐area approach provides a more biologically realistic representation of current connectivity, while the PA‐based approach complements it by identifying pragmatic opportunities for long‐term connectivity conservation. Together, these approaches identify priority areas and regions of uncertainty, providing a spatial framework to guide jaguar conservation and connectivity planning under accelerating global change.

Fire is a natural evolutionary force that shapes ecosystems and population dynamics. However, recent increases in the frequency and severity of anthropogenic fires have had catastrophic impacts on biodiversity, even in fire‐prone environments. In Brazil's Pantanal Wetland biome, 3.9 million hectares were affected by fires in 2020, leading to the mortality of an estimated 17 million vertebrates. In the Serra do Amolar region, 61.2% of the extent of eight protected areas was burned. Here, we use multi‐year camera‐trapping sampling between 2019 and 2022 at 50 sites and hierarchical Bayesian models to investigate terrestrial vertebrate responses to wildfires across 35 species within the Pantanal's Serra do Amolar region. We did not find evidence of effects of wildfires on occupancy. Nonetheless, five mammal (capybara, ocelot, red brocket deer, jaguar, and lowland tapir), two bird (bare‐faced curassow and rufescent tiger‐heron), and two reptile species (common green iguana and tegu lizard) showed a positive association between their occurrence probability and forest cover, indicating their vulnerability under future scenarios of recurrent wildfires. Additionally, the vertebrate species composition differed over the study period. In 2022, four species (undulated tinamou, jaguarundi, crab‐eating raccoon, and Brazilian squirrel) were no longer detected. Among all species considered, 64% exhibited declines in relative abundance over time, with giant otters experiencing the most significant decline, while 36% showed increases. These findings raise significant concerns for wildlife conservation in the region, underscoring the need for long‐term monitoring and proactive management strategies to mitigate the impacts of recurring wildfires on species abundance. We also highlight the importance of Serra do Amolar as a potential wildlife refuge, considering species resilience to a novel fire regime.